Savemybutt.com

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It’s inevitable.  Nothing lasts forever.  How does the old cliché go?  The only thing you can count on is death and taxes.

I hate it when I realize it’s my last day of vacation.  I hate it when there is no more pumpkin pie.  I hate it that my daughter got too big to hold in my arms.  I hate it because summer ended and it snowed the other day.  I hate it when I know it’s my last day at Disneyworld.  I hate it when I do the show remotely and Johnnie baked.

In 1981 I volunteered to help a friend, Chicago Eddie Schwartz, with a hair brained last minute idea he had to do a food drive to help the hungry people of Chicago.  He was mad that Mayor Byrne was spending one hundred thousand dollars on New Year’s fireworks instead of doing something good with the money.

Two days after the food drive Eddie, Dan Fabian, Lorna Gladstone, Miti Dozowitz and me met in the cafeteria at the WGN television studios to debrief about what had happened.

One of the first questions out of Dan was “can we do it again next year?”.  Eddie was all for it. Lorna was all for it. Mitri (another volunteer) was for it.  So, since everyone was already on board, I went for it.

The question came up as to who would be the chairman of all the volunteers Eddie would be asking to help out and to run this thing.  Who had the connections for trucks, boxes, pallets, fork lifts, and everything else it would take to make it a better event the next year.

Coming from the airline air freight business (this was before the computer age as we know it) they all turned their heads and looked at me.

That moment morphed into a grand 13 year stint running one of the biggest holiday events in Chicago.  That, in turn gave birth to Pumpkinfest for 7 years.

That is how I got my start as a “step-member” of the WGN Radio family 30 years ago. There is a lot more to that story that I might tell someday.

That is also how I met Steve and Johnnie.  In a very dark barn one fall afternoon someone put what felt like a pig’s ear in my hand.

Fast forward to 1999.  While you were fast forwarding a lot happened.  I had learned to write software, build, install, and repair computers, and had my own computer consulting business supporting small mom and pop companies.

In October of that year I was in my car heading home late one night.  For whatever reason I tuned into WGN on the radio.  Normally, I didn’t listen to talk radio.  I usually had music on in the car.

I did not know that Steve and Johnnie had started doing a show about websites, which was a pretty new concept at the time, with some fellow named Patrick on scratchy phone line and a guy named Shawn in the studio.

This show was right up my alley.  While listening to the show someone called with a technical question about their computer.  Patrick and Shawn did their best to answer it and Steve asked, as he still does today, if someone listening knew more about the question, to please call.

I called.  I gave an answered that solved the earlier listener’s problem.  Steve asked what I do for a living and thought that was cool.  He proceeded to ask if I wanted to come to the studio one night and sit in.

Since I had not been to the radio station in a long time, the food drive ended a couple of years earlier, I took him up on the offer.  His producer set it up for the next Wednesday.

Because I had been a fixture, like the furniture, at the station from September through the middle of December every year for the food drive for so many years I go to know everyone there.

When I arrived on the Wednesday night I was to be on the air many of the WGN employees stopped me and chatted for a minute or two.  News people, engineers, heck even the cleaning people.

I waited in the conference room until the producer came to get me.  I walked into Studio A, the big one that Uncle Bobby and Spike used during the day, to a surprised Steve King sitting behind the control console of “The Starship Enterprise” as some have called it.

Steve looked at me, knowing me from the food drive days, and asked “How are you? What are you doing here?” with a friendly welcome smile.

I explained to him that he had invited me the week before.  With a bit of a puzzled look he asked “that’s you?”.

I laughed and said yep, that’s me.  Computer consulting is what I did for a living.

Steve apparently did not recognize my voice on the radio the night I called which made my entrance a bit fun.

Steve and Johnnie introduced me to Shawn; I sat down in front of a microphone, and dove into the deep end of the pool.  I was going to sink or swim.  I swam in high school, so I figured I’d make it until morning.

I was unaware that on that Wednesday night sparks would fly and a fire would start that would burn for 12 years.  I fell in love with radio, I fell in love with the people that taught me how to do it, Steve and Johnnie, and most of all I fell in love with the people that listened.

Today is Wednesday, December 7^th, 2011.  It is the last time the Steve and Johnnie’s “Cybersquad”, Patrick Crispen, Nic Rotondo, Mike Reid, and me,  who are among my best friends, will get to have some fun in best radio studio in the country.  Studio A at WGN Radio.  In the house that “Wally” built.  Wow!  What a rush.  You couldn’t pay any amount for this experience.

Thank you Steve and Johnnie for teaching me all that you have.  I love you guys a whole lot and will cherish every moment we have had together.  Even those “teaching” moments.

By the way, Did I ask?  Don’t you just hate it when something good comes to an end?

Oh, and there’s one more thing…

As I pace back and forth thinking about what to write on the last line of this post…

About Website Wednesday Night?  It’s not over.  Stay tuned.

Watch this space for a new post at midnight central time.